The UK Land Registry has announced a 500% increase in the cost of updating the land register with new owner details. It used to cost £10 for the cheapest properties, now it will cost from £50 for the cheapest property to £920 for the most expensive properties.
How does this affect us? Whenever anyone buys or sells a house or piece of land the ‘land register’ is updated with the new details. Also when a new mortgage or secured loan is taken against a property the ‘land register’ details are updated to record this. Every update to the land register incurs a charge.
Land Registry justification for the increase is that they have not increased costs since 1993, a reasonable argument, but why increase costs whilst we are all in the midst of a recession and a housing market slump? They also state that their “income” from fees has fallen heavily due to the lower number of property sales which are currently 44% of the levels they were 2 years ago. Does this mean that when property transaction increase and they start making huge profits they will consider cutting their fees? I doubt it.
Whatever the Land Registry’s justification it does not seem very good timing to increase the cost of buying a home, but as they are a monopoly it seems then they can charge what they like, we have no choice but to pay up.
